British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
